Science explained with humor, analogy, and pop culture. (Because sometimes you just wanna understand a thing…)

Plankton Confessional

Your Definition of Plankton

Plankton – the little floaty things in the ocean that whales eat, right? So much more. For example: chalk. You heard me.

I submit that the reason I didn’t really know what plankton is is because nobody ever told me all the COOL stuff about it. Cool commenceth here.

Actual & Greek Definition of Plankton

Plankton = ocean creatures that drift around and cannot swim against a current.

The minority on the right is totally gonna win.

It’s a wicked biological catch-all – for when you’re just too lazy to be specific or taxonomically technical. Like ‘dinosaurs’ or…‘minorities’.

Plankton officially comes from the Greek word ‘planktos’ for ‘wanderer.’ Which I think is a bit of stretch – I mean, are you really ‘wandering’ if you can only kinda flail around? And only maybe in a direction if it’s nice and calm out? Like, are limbless people ‘wanderers’? Or people in hot air balloons?

Pretty sure all those who planktos are lost.

Or is ‘wander’ really just a euphemism to make it sound like being scared out of our minds includes some kind of spiritual openness, like, again, being in a hot air balloon, or being eaten by a whale (I’m lookin’ at you krill,…and Jonah).

They say mosquitoes can’t fly against a breeze (air plankton!) but they are definitely not ‘wandering’. They are out to do evil. They are eviling.

Planktevil.

But I digress…

Plankton can be plant-like (phytoplankton) or animal-like (zooplankton), and some are only considered plankton for part of their lives. Like small children caught in the undertow.

Zooplankton

Just because you’re plankton doesn’t mean you can’t be a brainless brain-destroyer mildly reminiscent of an atom bomb.

Zooplankton are the animal-like ones that have to find food for themselves. The largest official plankton – jellyfish. Amazing right? Making ‘jellyfish’ neither a jelly, nor a fish. Discuss.

But it’s true, jellyfish are plankton, as though they can swim in a direction, they could not stand up to a flipper’s worth of current.

In my mind, they sit a little easier at the plankton table because they have no bones or brain. Ironic that something with no brain would contain a neurotoxin (eats brains!) in their tentacles.

Enough about animal-likes, let’s talk about the plant-likes.

Phytoplankton = Chalk

Phytoplankton have chlorophyll in them, so they can get their energy from the sun. They tend, therefore, to hang out near the surface where they provide food for shrimp, snails, whales, and ironically, jellyfish (it’s like the blind eating the blind!).

One type of phytoplankton is a teenie weeny thing called a coccolithophore (pronounced: Co-co for Cocoa Puffs LIT-oh-four). For protection it iron mans itself by making limestone plates all around it in a shell of scales. Cuz that’s a thing.

Coccolithophores’ worthy aspiration.

But I suppose limestone is just calcium, carbon, and oxygen, which are all present in the ocean. No doubt just waiting to become like one of those plastic puzzle balls that you can throw against a wall and shatter, then put back together. Like that. Only stone and awesome.

When these creatures die or make extra (or someone goes on a throwing spree), the plates fall to the bottom of the ocean. That oceans recedes, and the exposed rock is covered in the remains, which is this white powdery stuff that we call chalk!

colored death sticks

Friggin chalk! Which in the 1900s we then gathered, refined, formed into cylinders, baked (#ScientistsAreBakersToo) and then scrawled on blackboards which were black because they were made from actual slate rock. Rock on rock = bleeding ears. It’s all coming together…

The White Cliffs of Dover in England. Because chalk!

If you have a microscope, you should immediately look at some chalk dust. You might need a powerful one though, as these shells, or coccoliths as they are called, are only 3 one-thousandths of a millimeter. Each coccolithophore has about 30. Which means the number of these dead creatures in the ocean is in the bajillion million, impossibillion scale.

Phytoplankton = Magic

If chalk doesn’t impress you, it being dead n’all, how about dinoflagellates (pronounced: mag-ic)? These plankton have tails (flagella) that help them swim about as well as a pool noodle would serve as an oar. Better yet though, these plankton are bioluminescent, which mean they light up perdy (to learn how this really works, check out my post I’ll Luminate Your Essence).

The theory goes that they flash to confuse predators, or warn others. But they’re easily scared, so anything that disturbs them, like waves, will set them off. Hence amazing waves:

Phytoplankton = Flea Killer

Diatoms – best Christmas decorations ever

Another major group of phytoplankton are diatoms. These are the single-celled snowflakes of the ocean. Instead of surrounding themselves with a limestone shell, these guys have a silica (glass-like stuff) based covering, which makes them unique and gorgeous.

They also leave their shells behind after death, and their powdery remains are called diatomaceous earth. You may have heard of this as an alternative flea control. How does it work?

diatomaceous chex mix will destroy your flea family

Well, diatomaceous earth is like a bunch of microscopic death shards. If it touches a flea, the flea’s exoskeleton is cut open, and the super absorbent power sucks out their fluids and dehydrates them to death.

Kind of like if you threw a human into a vat of diamonds and lined the bottom with paper towels. The only problem is, to use it you basically have to white powder bomb your house and hope it’s getting to every last flea.

I am nothing if not here to educate, so hopefully you will walk away with the knowledge that plankton is a magical, chalky, snowflake flea death. The truth shall prevail.